One of the important areas of museum research is that of provenance, or the history of ownership.

Why is it important to know who owned an artwork? Well, for a number of reasons.

First, it can provide evidence that a work is authentic. When buying a Monet, if it can be traced back through history to the artist, you can be sure your investment is worth it! (I’ll share more about the provenance of our own Monet, left, in a future post.)

Studying provenance also gives us insight into the history of tastes and collecting. Believe it or not, artists that are esteemed today (like Johannes Vermeer) were not necessarily well-known or widely collected in earlier centuries. Studying who owned the work of such artists can teach us much about social, economic, and political history.

Finally, it establishes proof of ownership. If you know the provenance of an artwork, you won’t spend a lot of money on a painting that had been stolen.

Because a museum must take good care of the objects in its collection (we call this stewardship), the mandate for provenance documentation is usually included in written policies. To help museums in understanding the best practices required of them, professional organizations also provide guidelines that emphasize the need for provenance research. In particular, European art requires this type of ongoing investigation–we’ll see why in a moment. This means that checking, documenting, and uncovering the history of ownership of our artworks is one of my main job duties.

Provenance research can be exciting. It can be boring. It can be satisfying. It can be frustrating. But it is crucial, and luckily, I enjoy doing it!

Before we dive into the series, I want to share a bit about the history of provenance. I mentioned that research into provenance is essential to prove ownership. For European art, this is particularly pertinent because of the fate of artworks during times of war and unrest.

Looting is sometimes opportunistic—people taking treasures because of their value. But looting is also a way for the victor to show power over the vanquished. Buildings, artifacts, and artwork are crucial to the identity of a culture, and what better way to break the spirit of a people than though destroying and stealing these cultural expressions?

In ancient Rome, a victorious general would enter the heart of the empire with his soldiers carrying plunder and leading prisoners. This display of power provided proof of his conquests, earned the respect of the Roman people, and claimed the power and glory that victory entailed—not to mention the profit that he could make by selling the riches. The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum includes a relief showing a triumphal procession made after the sack of Jerusalem (right). The soldiers carry the booty that the Romans took from the city–including a large menorah, which you can see raised high above their heads.

Later on–between 1796 and 1812–Emperor Napoleon of France mandated the looting of artwork from enemies during his various military campaigns. Using the Ancient Roman precedent for his imperialist policies, Napoleon saw this as a way to not only help pay for war, but to also raise the morale of French citizens.

Albumen silver print of the Apollo Belvedere, a Roman marble copy from ca. mid-2nd century AD of a Greek bronze from 330–320 BC. Photograph ca. 1854–55 taken by James Anderson (British, 1813–1877). Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

The Louvre, at that time recently opened, was to be the showplace for these riches. The most famous example of Napoleon’s plundering of artwork was in Italy. The Treaty that Pope Pius VI signed with Napoleon demanded that many of the art treasures of the Vatican would be sent to France, including the Apollo Belvedere (left) and Raphael’s Transfiguration. After Napoleon’s defeat, English officials returned much of artworks to their origin.

Museums, as you can imagine, must therefore be informed and proactive in finding out where their collections come from, no matter when they were accessioned. It’s not only good for us, it means that we are being ethical in our decisions and doing the right thing!

In my next blog post, we’ll look more at the period of art looting that is most familiar to many: the Nazi period in Germany.

Catherine Sawinski is the Assistant Curator of Earlier European Art. When not handling the day-to-day running of the European art department and the Museum’s Fine Arts Society, she researches the collection of Ancient and European artwork before 1900.

2 replies on “Questions of Provenance–An Introduction”

Catherine, read this with great interest. I am a volunteer at a fledgling military museum on the Oregon coast. Everything is done and was done by volunteers and I am tasked with archiving things donated. What a great job but bags dropped off since 2008 is a challenge. Anyway am reading everything I can, as best as I can, to at least research each item. Alas with a background in the military and law enforcement, I treat the area and contents much like an evidence locker and assume nothing. I found your blog and will follow as you are able to articulate my new thought processes! At 73, am stretching my world. gina Cassidy

[…] may remember that one of the things that I get to do while researching the European collection is document the provenance of the artworks. And this includes researching the donors mentioned in our credit lines. We have so many donor […]